Matte Effect in Photoshop

The Cinematic Matte Effect in Photoshop

Have you ever seen a portrait that immediately evokes a mood in you? Maybe it feels nostalgic or warm, but you can’t quite put your finger on why it feels that way. It is probably because the artist used a Cinematic Matte Effect.

Hop onto any stock website and type the word “portrait.” You will see this cinematic effect on 7 out of 10 portrait images per page scroll. The Matte Effect makes the blacks look on the gray side and leaves the rest of the tones intact. The result is a wonderfully nostalgic look, free of dark contrast.

A quick image search of portraits on Pexels.com

The process is pretty simple and can be accomplished with a very simple move on the Curves Adjustment Layer. All you have to do is lift the lower corner of the curve up and make some anchor points on your mid-tones and highlights. You can get pretty creative with it though. You can go into the Red, Green, and Blue channels and add some color to the darks to add a subliminal color that the viewer will feel but may not be able to spot without you pointing it out. This is an excellent way to evoke some emotions in the viewer that they may not have felt if you showed them the image straight out of the camera.

The process can work for Portraits and Landscapes alike. I use it all the time in subtle doses, often dropping the Opacity of the effect below 50%. It is kind of like a vignette. It is highly effective, but best used in subliminal ways.

Watch the tutorial today and enjoy some Actions that do some of the heavy lifting for you!

f.64 Academy and f.64 Elite are the brainchildren of Blake Rudis. While he is a landscape photographer he is most passionate about post-processing images in Photoshop and mentoring others.

For Blake, it is less about the art and more about the process. He dives deep into difficult topics and makes them easy to understand through his outside the box thinking.

36 Comments

Mike Fox on January 27, 2017 at 10:48 am

Great tutorial! Thank you. Will implement immediately. The only downside is this: the more of your tutorials I watch and the more of your training courses I purchase the more I want to go back and rework the host of images I’ve already printed and have hanging on my walls . . . ;o)

That is the joy of the passion! I am the same way, though. I learn new things in Photoshop every day that I am in it. I taught myself a new trick the other day in an area I never thought I would go into. I find myself just randomly going through the menu items sometimes and trying to teach myself new ways to use things I have never used before. It is mildly addicting 🙂

You got it Tom, I would do it at the end, in the Artistic Effects stage. That would ensure I’d have a good Black Point to start and also finish the image well. I would hesitate to do this at any time before the Artistic Expression phase.

It does appear to have a similar effect to the Shadows slider. However, the Shadows slider would not be able to get that strong of an effect in the Darkest darks as it mainly targets Zone 2-5 and barely touches Zones 0 and 1 which we are affecting here. It is similar, though.

Neat! Such an easy way to make a flat image desirable, I really need to learn all that blend if stuff! Do you ever think you could do a short tutorial on arranging a functional workspace in Photoshop! I have the Zone System Express and seem to be running out of workable photo real estate… Thank you Blake!

I considered myself a middling PS user but I have learned a lot from Blake. If you have not checked out his Zone System Express, do so. It has changed the way I edit in PS. These tutorials are a great bonus. Many thanks.